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The due diligence report at center of Waymo-Uber case

AP

A due diligence report prepared by a forensics company as part of Uber's acquisition last year of a startup founded by former Waymo employee Anthony Levandowski has been publicly released. The report's contents confirm much of what Waymo, which is suing Uber for allegedly stealing its trade secrets, has suspected about Levandowski.

Why it matters: Levandowski fought to keep the report from turning up in the lawsuit, even appealing the court's decision to allow it to be released. Waymo believed it contained incriminating evidence and pushed to get access to it.

Key findings

Levandowski had company files on his personal devices, and destroyed some as well.

He worked to recruit Waymo employees for his new company.

He met with Uber executives while still working at Waymo.

From Waymo

"The Stroz Report unequivocally shows that, before it acquired his company, Uber knew Anthony Levandowski had a massive trove of confidential Waymo source code, design files, technical plans and other materials after leaving Google; that he stole information deliberately, and repeatedly accessed it after leaving Waymo; and that he tried to destroy the evidence of what he had done. In addition, Mr. Levandowski used his smartphone to take thousands of covert photographs of computer screens displaying Google confidential files. Knowing all of this, Uber paid $680 million for Mr. Levandowski's company, protected him from legal action, and installed him as the head of their self-driving vehicle program. This report raises significant questions and justifies careful review."

The company is also asking for the trial — initially set to begin next week — to be pushed back as it won't have enough time to properly analyze the newly released evidence.

From Uber

"Before Uber acquired Otto, we hired an independent forensics firm to conduct due diligence because we wanted to prevent any Google IP from coming to Uber. Their report, which we are pleased is finally public, helps explain why—even after 60 hours of inspection of our facilities, source code, documents and computers—no Google material has been found at Uber. Waymo is now attempting to distract from that hard fact, even attempting to hide its core trade secrets case from the public and the press by closing the courtroom. In the end, the jury will see that Google's trade secrets are not and never were at Uber."

Self-driving lab head urges freeze after "nightmare" fatality

Uber self-driving car in Pittsburgh. Photo: Jeff Swensen / Getty

Carmakers and technology companies should freeze their race to field autonomous vehicles because "clearly the technology is not where it needs to be," said Raj Rajkumar, head of Carnegie Mellon University's leading self-driving laboratory.

What he said: Speaking a few hours after a self-driven vehicle ran over and killed a pedestrian in Arizona, Rajkumar said, "This isn't like a bug with your phone. People can get killed. Companies need to take a deep breath. The technology is not there yet. We need to keep people in the loop."

Why it matters: Virtually every major car company on theplanet, in addition to numerous startups and tech companies, are doing live testing of self-driving vehicles — and pushing policy officials to allow them to do so.

But Rajkumar said that ordinary people in addition to automakers and tech companies have developed far too much trust in self-driving technology simply because the cars have driven hundreds of thousands of miles with only one fatality before this — a Tesla driver who slammed into the side of a truck last year.

Quote "This is the nightmare all of us working in this domain always worried about."

Trump, Sessions & GOP lawmakers to meet about sanctuary cities

The White House is hosting a roundtable on sanctuary cities Tuesday afternoon with the President, Attorney General Jeff Sessions, Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen of the Department of Homeland Security, Republican lawmakers and others, Axios has learned.

Why it matters: Conservatives tried to use this week’s massive government spending bill to cut federal funds from sanctuary cities, but they failed, according to sources involved in the process. But Trump officials want to use Tuesday’s event to highlight the issue and put pressure on cities that don't comply with federal immigration law enforcement.

The roundtable guest list:

Donald Trump

Mike Pence

John Kelly

Stephen Miller

Attorney General Jeff Sessions

DHS Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen

ICE acting Director Tom Homan

Gene Hamilton, Counselor to the Attorney General

Rep. Michael McCaul (R-TX)

Rep. Martha McSally (R-AZ)

Rep. Mark Meadows (R-NC)

Sen. Pat Toomey (R-PA)

Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR)

Texas AG Ken Paxton (R-TX)

Arkansas AG Leslie Rutledge

Members of the law enforcement community

Big picture: The Department of Justice is already suing the state of California for the state’s “radical” sanctuary cities law. And In his speech on Monday, President Trump blamed sanctuary cities for releasing criminals, drug dealers and gang members back into society, claiming that "ending sanctuary cities is crucial to stopping the drug addiction crisis."

Shortly after, Sessions announced that the DOJ had filed a lawsuit against California, and personally attacked Shaaf in his speech, saying she endangered the lives of law enforcement to promote her "radical open borders agenda."